where i’ve been.

turns out, once you kind of give in to letting the blogging slide…it becomes easier and easier to let the blogging slide.

the weeks have been full—typical end of the school year stuff like art shows and chorus concerts.

typical spring outdoor stuff like putting in ponds and ordering 10 tons of rock (eek!)

don’t be fooled by the mindtrick that is this picture—ten tons of rock is a LOT of rock.

then of course there’s our other typical spring routine…

more casting for our tiny tim. seems like it gets just a little harder each time. this time, for her week in a long leg cast, we broke down and rented a wheelchair. that cast is heavy and by the end of a day on crutches she was in pain—both her leg/foot and arms. but we made it ten days and had her followup yesterday…

cast number 38, and YAY for short leg casts you can walk on!!! (the crutches were temporary because her leg is pretty sore for a while after the old cast comes off). this guy will be on for two weeks, then fitted for new braces and casted for about 4 more weeks while we wait for the braces. so she’s going to be casted through the end of the school year and into the beginning of summer. :o( bummer.

i’ve had my own issues, too. some health concerns are necessitating a switch off my current meds and over to new medication. the truth is i haven’t been “right” since elliot was born. my body knew that, and i knew that, but it’s taken me until now to convince the doctors of that. the numbers on the tests are starting to bear out what i’ve been saying for a long time now, so they’re listening. unfortunately that’s the time and place we live in—doctors put more stock in numbers on paper than on what you say about how you’re feeling. but whatever. i’m not holding a grudge. i’m just hopeful that in the next few weeks i’ll have some answers.

BUT ANYWAY…

there’s been sewing. lots and lots of sewing, actually. and even some crocheting (gasp! that’s a winter hobby!)

all things i’m going to share soon.

also, i’m honored to be a part of this again this year--

woohoo! coming in june! pretty sure i know what i’m doing…just have to, err…do it. ;0)

you may remember my contribution last year—my maxi dress.

why not check out some of the other tutorials from last year HERE? you know, to tide you over until i get my act together and start posting something besides random collections of…randomness entirely illustrated by photos stolen from my instagram feed. hehe.

les filles nagent. (did i mention we’ve decided to learn french as a family? you know…cause we’re bored.)

the water house

do you get that fear, just before leaving for a well-anticipated vacation, that it’s not going to be what you hoped? that the weather will disappoint, the kids will bicker too much, the location will be a bust?

i’m sure i’m not the only one. and as we packed up to leave for our long weekend at the house in the woods i told jeremy how scared i was that this trip wasn’t going to be the relaxing, family-building excursion i had built up in my head.

boy was i wrong.

it was everything we hoped.

sure, the kids fought some. but not too much. and the dishwasher on the house broke and leaked all over the kitchen floor, but whatever. and harrison had four ticks on him, but we found them all.

the plus column just kept racking up more and more. so the minuses didn’t bother us quite so much.

the kids woke up every morning and headed outside. they spent the days exploring the stream—mostly in their underwear. that’s how secluded it was. their inner jungle babies awoke, and for four days it was the epitome of every childhood fantasy and children’s book ever written.

the house is set all by itself back in the woods. it was the cabin i had dreamed of finding—not a house in a Lakeside Community (rec center! pool! neighbors on both sides!) of which there are many in the pocono mountain area. this was steps from water—and ages from everyone else.

you know it’s gonna be good when this is your driveway.

no hipster-decor faux deer head  here. the real stuffed and furry deal hanging in our little cabin.

you park on one side of the stream then cross a footbridge to the other bank where the house is. no electronics was the rule—the ipods/pads/tablets/tvs all were banned, and even any cell phone usage was relegated to the far end of the footbridge—the only place you could really pick up much of a signal.

the stream itself was perfection. little “rapids” right under the bridge were like a constant song. the large calm area in front of us ranged from ankle deep to about 2’…just right for exploring with no fear.

they canoed and laughed and skipped rocks and laughed and fished and laughed.

by the end of the day we were hungry and tired—but the good kind of hungry and tired that comes from long days in the sunshine and fresh air. we hit the food store our first day, list in hand, and overpaid for 4 days worth of meals. gotta love little grocery stores in little towns. half pound of butter? that’ll be $5 thankyouverymuch. whatever.

i’m pretty sure she spent the better part of all four days like this—tossing rocks into the water.

we walked out the door and hiked. left or right—didn’t matter. the scenery was gorgeous in either direction. we were having An Adventure. an adventure in forest that almost looked like it was created by walt disney.

we did breakfast in jammies, lunch in panties, dinner in sweats out by the stream. roasting marshmallows, playing game after game of movie charades and 20 questions that had us all laughing hard.

dinner cooked over an open fire, s’mores until we were ready to burst, rock skipping contests until your arms were sore and your belly hurt from laughing.

“FWOG!”

i’m learning how much i’m enjoying older children—the kind that you can have a conversation with, and play games with—beyond candy land and memory.

elliot is not a fan of the group photo.

we learned elliot is a born boater. no fear, she sat still and content on the little canoe. “ma boat, mommy! ma boat!”

we learned guinevere has lots of her mother’s and opa’s genetics—and can spent hoouuuurrrrrs reading.

we learned ava is perfectly content to strip down to nothing and be free in the forest. “panties ON!” became our war cry. you’ve gotta draw the line somewhere, right?

we learned gigi…well, she’s gigi. and there’s no learning gigi because she’s constantly surprising you. did you pee your pants? she asked jeremy as they played, because i heard something squirting.

we learned harrison has a terrible fear of ticks, no matter how much i tried downplaying how very much they FREAK ME OUT. kids pick up on that sort of thing, you know.
 

he is clearly not afraid of dead crawdads

the very first day he was the only one to venture to what later became known as Tick Island. it rightly became a no-man’s-land for the rest of the weekend.

the smaller island in our stream was christened Hava Island, claimed by harrison and ava—replete with leaf and stick flag planted proudly.

Hava Island. not much to explore.

i can add other things here, pedantic thoughts like how the weather was perfect and there were virtually no bugs (the benefits of going in early may). or i can be more poetic and say how i couldn’t get enough of the sound of the twigs and pine needles crackling under my feet as i walked, and how the moss on the rocks was like a springy cushion we couldn’t get enough of poking.

but i’m sure you can fill in the blanks. just know we were sad—so, so sad—to leave. but our weekend in the woods did it’s job, and we returned home reinvigorated.

they showed me how sad they were to be leaving. elliot just wanted to comfort their sad faces.

reinvigorated, and full of memories and bumps and scraped up knees.

a more perfect start to summer i don’t think we’ll ever have.

straight up dining room, part two

i’ll take it easy on ya today. less waxing poetic re: my dining room table, more straight home decor photos of the dining room.

talked about my plans for the dining room HERE, revealed the new table HERE

one of the biggest—okay, the BIGGEST eyesore in the old dining room was the unfinished fireplace. remember this?

EEEK! i hear scary stabby movie music every time i look at that. it was terrible looking, and we’d had the tile to finish it sitting in the shed for yeeeaaaars. i was pleasantly surprised to come home to this one day:

tile done. a basic slate from the home depot. it’s another spot where we like the interplay of something a bit more rustic (the tile) with something a bit more refined (the mantel + surround).
the firebox was painted with a high heat spray paint. we don’t light roaring fires in here, just the candles and the occasional wax firelog thingy. the candle holder was given to us as a hand me down. i may spray it black eventually, but for now it works.

the mantle itself is very simple. an open box on top mimics the open frames on the walls.

seriously. every stinkin’ time i look back at that ‘before’ shot i shudder. i can not believe we lived with it like that for so long. ugh. anyway, moving on.

(library picture--Home Goods clearance, $15, hotel sign—Home Goods, $5, schweppes plaque---yeah right i’ve had that since the year one. maybe $4?, motorcycle—Ross, $15, candle holder—Ross, $3)

this area above the mantel has given me hives since the wall frames and mantel were built. it’s not a big space—only 29” high from the bottom of the trim to the mantel, but it’s 65” wide. it needed something with PRESENCE, something worthy of being ABOVE THE MANTEL. but any mirror or picture i tried putting there was just too tall.

i’ve finally managed to cobble together this collection of things, and for now—i like it.

moving on around the room…

there she is. the frame that almost broke the camel’s back. or something like that.

(frames—IKEA ribba, $15 each, prints—IKEA, $12 for all 3)

in the end i decided three frames was fine…mainly because i found this set of three prints at IKEA and fell in love. i do kind of wish there was a fourth…maybe someday when i’m bored i’ll play around with photoshop and come up with a fourth. which city? hmmm….i’m thinking something like mumbai or pisa or something. suggestions?

i love these prints. probably more than any one girl should love three prints. i won’t apologize.

one of  the other major changes we made was moving the buffet from this wall to the window wall.

before:

after:

okay, yeah. that’s not the same buffet. the new one is much narrower, much lower, and in much better condition. and are you ready for this—it was $12. TWELVE. DOLLARS.

this is the photo i sent to jeremy when i found it at the thrift shop on half-off day:

how do you know it’s the right size? he asked.
i measured, i answered.
what do you mean “measured”?

he knows me so well.

i stood next to the window and figured out about how high up on my leg it could come and still be under the sill. don’t worry, it’s perfect. kiss kiss mwah mwah.

why is that a problem? i don’t always have a tape measure with me, but i always have my thighs with me.

probably i need a beard to really pull this off. but enjoy.

this is picture i instagrammed of myself bringing it home:

don’t worry—i took this while stopped. because clearly i’m concerned about safety.

a few coats of satin finish black spray paint, and some silver on the hardware, and there it is.

 

sideboard—thrifted, $12, spray paint—$9

oh—and some greasy kid fingerprints on the front to really make it feel at home.

the top got another collection of things…

(lamps—owned, $3 update for fabric paint on the shades, urn—home goods, $9, oyster—home goods, $12, candle—owned)

the lamps i discussed HERE. they got a cheap and dirty $3 makeover to fit into the new dining room. the blue urn has a chip in the back, so it was super cheap. and the oyster was my big splurge—12 whole dollars i paid for that. i really love that little thing. and the kids love making sure it always has a “pearl” in it. the wire candle holder is the misfit in this grouping—i feel like it needs something green and plantish. but i had this, so it’s a free placeholder for now.

the curtains were an easy DIY project, and they got their own post HERE. they were the first choice for the dining room, and the wall paint color was based off the birds.

curtain fabric + grommets—$49.50 total for the pair

the last major change in the room--

when we initially started this dining room makeover/finishing i was ready to write off this light. i was pretty much over it, and wanted something more modern…maybe rectangular to fit over the new table? the light was a $50 j.c. penny’s outlet purchase right after we bought the house. it hung in our kitchen first, then moved to the dining room when we built our addition. safe to say we got our $50 out of it.

but on a whim i decided to spray it black.

now this is where i tell you what it means to be my friend: it means when you find out your nincompoop of a friend is going to spray paint her ceiling light black—WHILE IT IS STILL HANGING IN THE ROOM, you drive yourself over and take on the unforgiving job of holding a board behind the light to catch most some of the overspray. it means you go home with black feet, because the board didn’t catch some most of the overspray, and then text photos of your blackened nostrils to me later in the evening.

anybody want to be my friend? because that’s all the stuff laura did. <3 you, girl. and i think it was worth it. because painting the base black and spraying the metal shades white took it from this:

to this:

and now i LUUURRRRVVE it. just like that. i’m calling it a free upgrade, since i used spray paint i already had.
the last addition to the light was these little crystals:

a friend made them for me a million years ago—they’re simple beads strung on wire and attached to magnets. there’s 8 of them, you can attach them around the edge of a lampshade for a little added bling. here they perform the function of hiding the little screw end that’s missing a cover (that’s why it was $50 in the first place).

i’m not gonna lie—it wasn’t the easiest job, or my brightest (ha!) idea. but the difference it makes is amazing.

and that’s it. the dining room in toto.

one more time for the people in the back…

BEFORE:

AFTER:

cleaner, lighter, brighter. that’s what my goals were when i started this. i’d say it’s a check, check, check.

my other goal? CHEAP. let’s see how we did:

DINING ROOM COST BREAKDOWN
paint – free (had an HD credit)
table – $30 for misc. supplies (screws, glue, etc.), labor, wood & finishing were freeeee!
chairs – had
pictures + frames – $57
fireplace – free (already had the tile, grout & supplies)
fireplace decor* – $38
buffet + spray paint – $21
buffet decor* – $21
curtains – $49.50
lamp upgrade – $3
chandy upgrade – freeeeee!
---------------------------------------------------
TOTAL: $198.50

*i only included the new items i bought, not the things i already had

looks like another checkmark to me. just squeezed under the $200 mark for my room upgrade.

there you have it. dining room done.

googiemomma out.